I’m going to answer this question in two parts. First, college…and then my career.  

I have to be honest—I don’t think I use a single thing I learned (academically speaking) in college in running my blog and working in social media. That said, I made amazing connections and secured an internship that later turned into a full-time job. I also learned a lot about myself and learned how to multi-task and prioritize.  

My marketing background, however, is an entirely different story. My time at P&G taught me (relentlessly) to always focus on the consumer. Every. Single. Part. Of every campaign must revolve around your consumer. I think that’s really helped me, both in running my blog (my readers always come first) and at BaubleBar (whenever I’m not sure what we should do, I put myself in her shoes and think about how she’s going to want to engage, what things will be exciting to her, her habits, etc.).

I always joke that I slipped into P&G through the cracks. I don’t have my MBA and most folks do these days at those companies—at least nowadays. I worked really hard, but I also was very fortunate. I joined a company that had just been purchased by P&G (formerly Cosmopolitan Cosmetics) and from there, I did everything I possibly could to learn and grow within the organization.  

In terms of lessons, first, I think it’s so important to always be scrappy, no matter how big of a company you work for. Work long hours, learn everything you can and manage each dollar of your budget as if it were your own. Second, your reputation is everything. If you are just starting out, intern and meet as many people as you can. If you have been working for a while, manage your reputation ruthlessly. I put a lot of work into my professional relationships and I think that’s why I’ve been successful. I’m definitely not the smartest person in the room or even the most qualified, but I have great relationships and I think that’s actually more important. Finally, in terms of landing the job, networking is huge. I got my job at P&G via connections from my first job, and then I got my job at Coty via someone from P&G who had gone there. Again, it’s all about those connections!

First of all, it’s so different now than it was five years ago! When I started out, I just did it for fun. It was two years before I made a cent from my blog. Now, you have to go in with a business plan. You need to know exactly who you are targeting or writing for, how you are going to promote your site, what your focus is on and so on and so forth. You need a great design. And probably the hardest part: you need to find a way to stand out and be at least a little bit different. Maybe it’s your writing style, maybe it’s your photos or the type of content you produce. These days it feels like everything has been done, so I think to be successful you have to differentiate yourself.  

As for me, to be honest, up until very recently, I wasn’t sleeping much. I would work from 9:30 a.m. to 7:00 or 7:30 p.m., get home and be on the computer until 1:00 a.m. It wasn’t healthy. For that reason, I actually just decided to take a step back at BaubleBar. Now I’m there two days a week and can focus on my site and other projects the other three days. If you want to start a side project, you better love it and be truly passionate about it, because you’re going to sacrifice sleep.  

And then, in terms of things people don’t know about blogging? The emails! Between emails from readers, emails from brands and PR pitches, I easily get triple the emails I did at any of my other “real” jobs. It can be very overwhelming. 

Oh, boy. There are so many. The best thing about working at a startup is getting to truly influence the direction that the company goes. You can be so involved. For example, I have always loved the product side of the business, so I get to give my input there a lot, which is something I really enjoy. I loved feeling like I was really making a difference in contributing to the company’s success. Also, if you have an idea, you can make it happen. Immediately. That’s really empowering and different from the larger brands I worked for.  

The worst part? The long hours. And there’s not a lot of time for “Thank you” and niceties. Everyone’s going a million miles an hour and sometimes people just forget.  

As for the office culture, it’s evolving. When I started, there were six of us, sitting around six desks that were pushed together. To be honest, those were my favorite days at BaubleBar—all the brainstorming, the collaborating. We worked really hard, but we managed to accomplish so much with so few people! Now, we’re growing quickly! The hours aren’t as long and we’re starting to celebrate and have a little more fun. Our office manager is always planning fun happy hours and team outings, which I love.

Haha. In the beginning, our strategy went sort of like this: throw everything at a wall and see what sticks. And we learned so much in terms of what our target girl likes and how she wants to interact with us. Now, we really dig into the analytics. Reporting is big at BaubleBar and it’s important to rely on data (though gut instinct still does play some sort of a role.)

I didn’t really have a vision when I started! I just wanted to have a place to share the things I loved and catalog inspiration. The vision is more or less the same (my site is all about discovery and finding cool things.) What’s changed is how I package it. Over time, I’ve hired a professional photographer, learned Photoshop and gotten a sleek design to highlight all of those things I love sharing. I’ve gotten a bit away from all the DIYs I used to do, but now that I have more time to focus on my site, those will be coming back.

Oh, boy. (1) Influencer relationships are everything. Build them organically and work hard at maintaining them. (2) Study your channels and see what your audience engages with the most. Elanah Entin, BaubleBar’s social media manager (who used to report in to me) did an amazing job with this. In the two years she’s been at BaubleBar, she’s taken our Instagram from 20,000 followers to over 220,000 by listening and creating content that our customers really want to engage with and share. (3) Test, test, test! Over time, I’ve learned the best times to post. It’s different for every audience and on every channel. But that’s so important. It’s crazy how even an hour can make so much of a difference.

On the social media team, we collaborate with everyone. We work very closely with our business development team on our various partnerships—as well as our creative team since they make most of our social graphics. We’ll also work with our merchandising team (to help promote items and styles that might need a little extra love).  

In terms of being a good team player, I try to make sure every question is answered out of a meeting so that we don’t have to go back and make unnecessary revisions to a plan or a program. I think it’s really important to build and develop the people on your team, too. As a manager, that’s so important. And lastly, smile and just be a nice person. Smiling goes a long way—especially when everyone’s working that hard!

Most definitely. The first leap was deciding to move to New York. The second was leaving Coty and going to BaubleBar. And the third was, more recently, scaling back. I’m a nervous person and get a lot of anxiety over change, but I find that if I listen to my gut, everything is usually okay. For each of those three leaps, I had the same feeling in the pit of my stomach—that I had to make that change. All three times, I just did it and didn’t look back. Of course, it also helps to do things that will minimize anxiety—ensuring your savings account is in good shape, having a backup plan in case things don’t work out in your favor, etc.!

The biggest challenge is to not burn out, and I wish I could say I am great at that, but I’m not. Balance is so important and a word we all throw around, but at the end of the day with both blogging and social media, you could work 24/7 if you don’t set boundaries.  

I’ll be really honest and tell you that this past January, I burnt myself out big time. I got really sick, found myself staying in bed all weekend and just generally found myself really unhappy. That’s when I decided to make a change. So I think it’s important to set boundaries, to not look at email for at least one day of the weekend and to make sure you are having fun. When I am living my life, I’m the most inspired and—oddly enough—so much more productive.

Work hard and put your head down. I think everyone wants to be famous these days, or to have this amazing personal brand. That’s fine, but it’s your actual work that will speak for itself.

I wake up looking forward to coffee! And lately, just wondering what is going to come next. This new freelance/consulting lifestyle is exciting for me because there are just so many interesting and exciting opportunities.